


Mysterion Reborn

by Luvandia



Category: South Park
Genre: Broken Families, Drabble, Gen, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Kenny McCormick, Platonic Relationships, Sibling Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-06
Updated: 2018-02-06
Packaged: 2019-03-14 12:48:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13590378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Luvandia/pseuds/Luvandia
Summary: Mysterion only smiles, and it’s like watching his reflection move without his explicit permission. It is, by all accounts, fucked up.





	Mysterion Reborn

For as long as she can remember, Kenny has always been a good brother. Not the _best_ , certainly not an all-around dream American son, but he dotes on her sometimes and she knows it’s because he wants better for her than he ever got. It’s why they don’t talk all too much, too—he thinks he’s a bad influence. Sometimes she hears the way he talks about girls through their paper thin walls, and she thinks she understands why.

It’s different when Kenny is her sister. When she’s a sister, Kenny is sweet and charming. She pulls Karen into her arms, twirls her around, and they share dresses together and laugh the hours away in the safety of Kenny’s room. When Kenny’s her sister, she’s Karen’s safety blanket. When Kenny is her brother, he’s her net, for when the tightrope of their broken household casts her into the abyss below.

Some days, he doesn’t come home. Karen misses him on those days, cocooning herself into his sheets so she doesn’t cry. If he’s not there to protect her, her guardian angel might, but there’s something about losing her sibling that scares her deeper. 

It’s not about being protected. It’s about having a hand to hold in school when she’s scared, a room to go to at home when their parents are screaming. 

It’s about comfort.

She misses Kenny so much. 

Her guardian angel won’t come tonight. She knows, because whenever Kenny isn’t around then her guardian angel isn’t either. Mysterion was probably Kenny’s guardian angel, and Kevin’s before his. He’s hers now only because Kenny is a good big brother, but Karen thinks he still needs protecting too. 

“Dear guardian angel,” she says, clasping her hands together as tight as she can. “If you can hear me, please don’t come here tonight. I’m… I’m okay, I promise. Kenny— um, my brother… he needs you more.” 

Mysterion must know that too. As it always does, the wind answers her prayers, rushing into the room and brushing past her ears. Whenever Kenny ruffles her hair, it tickles the same way. 

Wherever Kenny is, Mysterion must be. She falls asleep by the open window, praying one day she’ll have her own.

 

Sunlight streams through the window first thing in the morning, and it’s how Karen realises she isn’t in her room. The first thing that greets her, for once, isn’t the crayon window she scribbled onto the wall when she was five—it’s her brother’s open closet. Purple cloth billows out from the gap. 

_Mysterion._

“Guardian angel,” comes out of Karen in a whisper. She rises, tripping over Kenny’s blanket. “Guardian angel! Kenny— Is Kenny okay, did you protect him, did you—”

The door falls open. There is no guardian angel waiting for her.

“—see… him…”

Blood stains the fabric. It crusts under her touch, falling away in flakes, fades into nothing. Beside it, Kenny’s parka hangs from the closet. 

Karen knows now why Mysterion never showed.

She grips the costume, buries her face in it, and doesn’t pray again.

 

Kenny wakes up the way he always does when he’s died: face up, tucked snug into his orange coat, and feeling vaguely like hell. Probably because he’s had to spend time there, counselling Satan through another bad breakup. His mouth is unbearably dry from all that talking. _Shit_ , he needs a drink.

As soon as he gets up knocking comes from the window, and his first thought is that it’s Stan or Kyle or god forbid, _Cartman_. Before he unravels the curtains he grabs a broom so he can knock whoever it is off the tree outside his room, but when the shabby curtains rise he comes face to face with none other than—

“Hello, Kenneth.”

—Mysterion? What the fuck?

“What the fuck?” Kenny backs off, but Mysterion stands tall and proud, cloak loose around their waist. “What the _fuck_! Who the hell are you? How did you—” He glances desperately at the closet, and sees an empty hanger from where his costume once hung. “—Dude, that was my fucking stuff! I’m poor as shit, rob someone else!”

Mysterion only smiles, and it’s like watching his reflection move without his explicit permission. It is, by all accounts, fucked up. They make themselves comfortable on the branch, sitting back to look at him. It’s an incredibly gentle expression. Whatever’s happening, Kenny finds himself drawn closer in.

Their voice is gravelly when they speak, a good attempt at his own. “I’m not here to rob you, Kenneth. Guardian angels rarely do.”

Kenny’s eyes grow wide.

“I just,” Mysterion clasps her hands together, looking down. The dirt on her cheek seems brighter with the mask half-obscuring it. “Wanted to thank you, I think. For everything.”

“You weren't supposed to know,” says Kenny.

“That’s what makes you nicer,” Mysterion says right back. “But don’t you need protecting too?”

He blinks and she disappears, and the next time they see each other it’s over the dining table where their burnt toast and poptart halves sit atop week-old paper plates. Something in her has changed. Knowing about Mysterion is one step closer to knowing about his immortality, and even though it’s a secret he’d rather take to his grave than share with Karen, he’s finally found someone who knows.

Even if it’s a smaller secret. Even if he doesn't want her wrapped up in this.

She’s his baby sister, and she wants to protect him too.

**Author's Note:**

> i love karen mccormick she's a good girl and i feel like mysterion is a way for kenny to connect to her in a different way. he's not exactly protective of her in canon though he does take care of her and love her, and i think karen taking up the mysterion mantle to protect kenny the same way was a nice idea. lmk your thoughts though or just scream about the siblings here it's all good


End file.
